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An obsession with elephants drove Joyce Poole to spend 14 years, much of it
alone, in the Amboseli National Park in Kenya studying these appealing, fearsome
animals. Her Coming of Age with Elephants (Coronet, £7.99, ISBN 0 340
66559 9) describes elephant society and behaviour and the bonds she formed with
individual elephants. Almost everything you learn is astonishing, not least the
elephant’s prodigious metabolism and urine output. There is tragedy, too. Some
of the photographs are distressing.